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THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Buenos Aires, Argentina)

For Immediate Release

October 17, 1997

INTERVIEW OF THE PRESIDENT
BY ARGENTINE REPORTERS

The Sheraton Hotel
Buenos Aires, Argentina

11:05 A.M. (L)

Q I will begin with a question about one of the main
aspects of your visit to Brazil and Argentina, which was the Mercosur
question. During several months it appeared that there were
controversial views in the U.S. concerning Mercosur. Since you
strongly backed, both in Brazil and Argentina, Mercosur, the question
is how you built up your conclusion or your position over the
Mercosur; and did you consider, eventually, other approaches before
taking a final decision, particularly in Brazil the other day.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that the impression
developed -- first of all, let's talk about how the impression
developed.

Q Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: I think the impression developed because
some people in the government and in the press in America I think had
the impression that Mercosur might be used as a vehicle to limit the
growth of trade and investment with the United States in ways that
would have adverse consequences for our long-term political, as well
as our economic, cooperation.

Now let me say at the end of the Cold War there were
Americans who felt that way about the European Union, as well. When
I became President there was a group of people, good people, in our
government -- permanent, civil servants -- who had the same feeling
about the European Union.

But I have a very different view. I believe that the
United States should do whatever it can to promote the
political and economic cooperation of democracies -- not simply
to grow the economy, but in a larger sense to lift the conditions
of ordinary people and to strengthen democratic institutions so
that they cannot be reversed. And, finally, because the threats
we face today at the end of the Cold War are much more likely to

be threats that cross national borders -- like terrorism, drugs,
organized crime -- as opposed to threats from other nations. So
we all have to adjust our thinking.

What I'm trying to do is to promote a process of
reorganization of the world so that human beings are organized in
a way that takes advantage of the new opportunities of this era
and permits them to beat back the problems. If you start with
that presumption, instead of a political organization in South
America that doesn't include us is a threat to us, then you come
to a very different conclusion. My conclusion is that Mercosur
has been good for the countries that are members of it because
they've torn down barriers among each other, that helps them all
economically. At the same time, our trade with all the Mercosur
nations has increased.

And it permits other things. For example, Brazil
and Argentina work with us to stop the interruption of the
democratic process in Paraguay. We now have the problems of
potential terrorist activities in the tri-border -- the countries
are now better equipped to do that. So to me this is a positive
thing.

Now, having said that, what I had hoped to do on
this trip is to convince the leaders -- not just the Presidents,
but the leadership, generally -- that it is also in our interest
to follow through on the commitment we made at the Summit of the
Americas in Miami to work toward a free trade area of the
Americas, and to see Mercosur, NAFTA, Andean Pact, CARICOM as
building blocks in this. This is very important, because if the
rest of the world should happen not to agree with us
philosophically, then having a big trade area will be a great
insurance policy for all these countries. And if we can prove
that you can merge integrated economies and integrated
democracies, then we'll be more likely to build a global system
of this kind.

So that's a long answer, but anyway it's important
that you understand that this Mercosur issue for me is part of a
very big world view. I just never felt as threatened by it as a
lot of people who saw it in terms of this particular negotiation
over this tariff or this custom or that sort of thing.

Q Mr. President, in this era of free market in
the region, the problem of social inequity is a great deal for
our countries and also for the strength of our democracy. I
would like to have your views about that.

THE PRESIDENT: First of all, I think it's important
to point out that this problem of social inequity is a problem
that every country in the world is facing -- even countries with
very robust growth. No country has solved the problem perfectly
of how to grow the economy and preserve more equality, and at the
same time move more poor people into the middle class.

Let me just give you a couple of examples. Look at
France, which has a very strong social contract but pays for it
with very high unemployment. Great Britain has opted for a
policy more like ours, where they're generating lots of jobs now
-- their unemployment rate is 6.5 percent, only about a
point-and-a-half higher --

Q 5.9, yesterday.

THE PRESIDENT: 5.9 yesterday, so it's only a point
higher than ours. And they're open to immigrants now, as the
United States is. But as a result of that, because the modern
economy favors technology and education, they've had increasing
inequality there, just as we have.

I think it's important to point out that most of
this is due to the structural changes in all advanced economies,
driven by technology. Trade is a part of it, but mostly it's the
changing of the paradigm, if you will, away from the industrial
society to the Information Age. And I believe the answer is to
have the government have less destructive involvement in the
economy, but the government should have more constructive
involvement in the society. Basically, you have to do, I think,
three things.

You have to, first of all, have a system of lifetime
education and training so that everybody can participate.
Secondly, you have to have a strategy to bring the benefits of
free markets to the places that are untouched -- technology can
help, investment can help. I think that is very important. And,
thirdly, you have to have adequate protections for people who,
through no fault of their own, are not participating. This is
easy to say and difficult to do, because if it costs too much to
do this you will weigh down the economy. But essentially that is
what must be done.

So the challenge in Argentina, the challenge in
Brazil, the challenge in Latin America is, in a different way,
the challenge that we in America face in the United States and
that the Europeans are trying to do -- even the Japanese now are
having to deal with it. So this is the new social challenge of
the 21st century. The answer is not to withdraw from the trade
or to pretend that the technology doesn't exist. The answer is
to get all the benefits.

Argentina for example -- I will make you a
prediction here. If you can maintain these levels of growth that
you have now, your unemployment will go down, but it will not go
as low as you want unless you have real systems to create more
small businesses, to hook small business into technology and
exports, and to create much more universally effective education
systems. But that's no criticism of the last seven years; you
had to fix all the problems of the past before you can confront
the challenges of the present.

Q Mr. President, to follow up what you just said,
corruption makes inequality even worse. You said that the
applying of the term endemic corruption to Brazil has been a
mistake. What's the precise meaning of the -- what's the precise
meaning of widespread corruption that had been implied in the
same document to the Argentine situation?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I wasn't even
familiar with this document. I didn't know it was issued. I
don't know who wrote it.

But let me back up and say when you are in a period
where the government has had heavy-handed involvement in the
economy, and then things start to change and arrangements are
unsettled, that's a point where, in general, civil societies are
vulnerable to corruption. Also, human nature being what it is,
there will nearly always be someone somewhere who is doing
something wrong.

So what you want, however, is a system where the
incentives are to be honest; where there are disincentives --
sanctions -- for being dishonest; and where you're moving in the
right direction. I told President Menem -- we had a talk about
this last night, I was complimenting President Caldera of
Venezuela because he took the lead in making sure that our
hemisphere -- we have, basically, the only convention against
corruption of any hemisphere in the world.

And I said to President Menem, and I said to the
young people at the Town Hall Meeting yesterday what my
experience is, just from my life in politics. And that is that
if a civil society can maintain a vigorous, free press, an
economy that works, and you can just preserve democracy, time
takes care of a lot of this. That is, I believe that 20 years
from now an American President will be sitting here, and either
you will be sitting here or your successors will be. And I will
predict to you that if democracy survives in Argentina -- which I
believe it will -- there will be less corruption; but you could
still ask a question about corruption. Do you see what I mean?
You could still ask.

So what my advice would be here, because this
country has come so far so fast, moving away from some of its
darkest moments not very long ago, and also moving away from the
heavy-handed control of the state over the economy, that the
focus should be on maintaining a vigorous and safe free press;
making sure that the economy operates according to
internationally accepted norms; and preserving democracy.

I had a great talk not very long ago with Senator
Dole, who was my opponent in the last election. We have quite an
interesting and good relationship, I think, and he was in
Congress for 35 years. So I said to him, Bob -- the Washington
press was full of some thing at the moment, I can't even remember
what it was -- I said, Bob, is Washington more honest today or
less than 30 years ago? He said, it's not close, they're much
more honest.

Q Much more honest?

THE PRESIDENT: Much more. And the same thing is
true everywhere. In other words, barring some unforeseeable
development, it always gets better if you can keep the press free
and vigilant and if you can keep the economy operating with some
integrity. And just the passage of time strengthens the
presumption of democracy and freedom and accountability. So it
will get better here if that can happen -- everywhere.

Q Mr. President, in your trip here and in Brazil
and Venezuela, was there anything that was striking or that
surprised you, that changed your idea of these countries or what
American policy should be towards them? I mean, what did you
learn on this trip?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I would say that
I feel that the potential for both growth and greatness in these
societies is even greater than I had imagined. I think that the
potential for America to have a constructive partnership and
actually help deal with some of these challenges that countries
face -- and they're different in all three countries -- is even
greater than I had imagined, as long as it's clear that we are
dealing in an atmosphere of mutual respect and equality.

And I think that the potential for solving at least
some of the worst social problems is greater than I had imagined.
That is, when I was in Brazil I went to a school in a very poor
neighborhood in Rio, where the children came out of circumstances
that were very difficult. And they were doing quite well. And
it seems to me that one of the obligations that the United States
has through our business community here is to do more throughout
Latin America to give that kind of educational experience to
children. If I could do one thing in sort of a crash way, it
would be to try to revolutionize the quality and reach of
education for all the children of the region.

Q You spoke about the freedom of the press. You
might be aware that in Argentina there's a coexistence between
freedom of the press and then serious threats and actions against
the press.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm very aware of that.

Q For example, the assassination of Jose Luis
Cabeza, a photo journalist. This morning the papers inform
quite, I hate to say, unprecisely, about some initiative you
probably told the government about supporting the press in an
international, American, Pan American --

THE PRESIDENT: Again, on this issue, I can't
comment on the specifics of because I don't know. I'm aware that
the photographer was killed and I know a lot of your reporters
have been threatened, and that the problem from your point of
view must be the question of whether this can be stopped in
specific cases.

But what I said to President Menem yesterday was
that, again, this is something that -- Argentina is building a
civil society, and it has to be built brick by brick. And the
fact that the press is free is a good thing. The fact that some
people feel free to at least threaten and perhaps harm members of
the press is a bad thing. So to get beyond that you have to
build even more bricks in the house of civil society.

What I suggested was that the OSCE, the Organization
on Security and Cooperation in Europe actually has a press
ombudsman, which has become quite important because we have all
these countries converting from Communism to free societies --
again, coming to grips with this from a different background, but
it's the same sort of issue. And most of our people who deal
with it think this has been quite a good thing. So I suggested
that perhaps he and other leaders here might support an
initiative to do the same thing within the OAS, so that we could
help every country where this is an issue, through an ombudsman
who could say not only this particular case has to be dealt with,
but here are institutional changes that could be made in this,
that or the other country, that would make it better. That was
my precise suggestion.

Q But that ombudsman, what kind of questions
would it deal with?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it would deal with whatever
questions the OAS was willing to refer to it. But I think the
idea would be to be able to take specific cases and build a
system where those kinds of cases didn't come forward. Of
course, the individual case would still have to be handled
through the justice system; but the point is maybe a press
ombudsman would say, look, here's the sort of judicial system
every country in OAS should have, or here's the kind of judicial
training center we ought to have. That's another one of our
proposals, battling around the OAS -- to set up a common judicial
training center so that every country could send their judges
there and we could have generally accepted systems which would
help to build a civil society.

Q Mr. President, are you aware or were you
requested any kind of classified information from the FBI or the
CIA by the Jewish organization that interviewed you yesterday
regarding the attack at the Embassy and the Amia?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the press report on that was a
little bit misleading today -- I don't think on purpose. But let
me explain what I said.

Q That's why I was questioning.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, I'm glad you asked. What I
said was that the judge with oversight on the case had already
talked to both the FBI and the CIA. The families of the victims
and their advocates believe that perhaps there are some people in
our government, or some people who've been involved in this who
have some information that has not been turned over. What I said
was that I would go back to our sources, our people, and see if
we could get any more information; I would do everything I could.

I think there was a little misunderstanding,
perhaps, in the translation when I simply pointed out that when
we operate in other countries we sometimes talk to people who
deserve the right to be protected and we have general rules that
we follow -- not in Argentina, everywhere in the world -- to try
to make sure that we never put anyone at risk who is helping us.
But we're going to see if we have information we have not turned
over that we can give to the appropriate authorities so we can go
forward with this.

This would be a very good thing, not only for the
families of the victims, but for Argentina, if we could actually
resolve the cases of the bombing of the Embassy and the Community
Center.

Q Argentina and U.S. relations were not always
like today. What really changed according to you, and when you
first perceived that such a change was underway?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think in the nearest term
what has changed is that Argentina moved away from military
governments that oppress and kill its people toward, not only a
democracy, but a democracy under President Menem that has
genuinely reached out to the rest of the world and tried to open
not only the economy, but the society. Even the debates you are
having about the government here are evidence of that. So I
think that's the first and most important thing.

Then I think the United States -- I would hope that
this is true; it's self-serving for me to say this, but I hope
it's true -- the United States, since I've been President we have
had a genuine interest in establishing a new kind of partnership
with Latin America. President Roosevelt wanted to do it, he
wanted to be a good neighbor, but the Cold War intervened -- he
died, the Cold War intervened, things happened. President
Kennedy wanted to do it, he wanted an alliance for progress. But
there were difficulties which made it impossible to have a
continuing effort. And then some of our Presidents just simply
disagreed. They saw every development in Latin America as a

manifestation of what was happening in the Cold War between the
United States and the Soviet Union.

I saw, as the first President who would govern
completely at the end of the Cold War, an opportunity essentially
to go back to the vision of Bolivar. And we are becoming more
alike, not only because of the globalization of our economy and
the universality of our communications, but because Spanish
speaking Americans are our fastest growing group. And because we
share now these values of democracy and peace and security.

So I think all these things have played a role. I
hope that I have played a role. I was the first President, I
believe, to appoint an envoy to all of the Americas -- Mack
McLarty, my former Chief of Staff. I don't think any President
has ever done anything like that before. So I have a person that
is very close to me actually in the region all the time, knowing
the leaders, knowing the people working with this.

But I think none of it would have been possible if
first you hadn't had the changes in Argentina. Because if we are
totally at odds with a country over its human rights policy, over
its political policy, over whether it's open to the United States
in a genuine partnership, then even our ability to lay down the
mistakes we've made in the past as a country would not have made
it possible. So the two things happened together.